One is a free-to-use method to organically rank your content and site higher in the search results. The other is paying to place yourself at the top of the search results. The debate between SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and PPC (Pay-per-Click) is a common one among businesses looking to improve their online visibility and drive traffic to their website.
How good is each method for generating leads and long-term success? While there is no straightforward answer to this debate, let’s break it down to understand what they are, their pros, cons, and gains. Decide the answer for yourself on who wins in the burning topic, SEO vs PPC.
A Brief Overview: What is SEO?
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the practice/process of improving your website/content in a way that increases its visibility in the search engine result pages (SERPs). SEO aims to drive more organic traffic to a website, increase its online presence, and ultimately improve its business.
Why Should You Do SEO?
- SEO gives you increased visibility and traffic to your website.
- More traffic and leads result in higher chances of conversions.
- It’s also about doing small quality-of-life changes to your websites, giving a better user experience.
- Gives you better credibility and authority in your industry.
- Lower cost/completely free to do it.
- Better sustainability in the long run.
- Branding and Awareness
How Does SEO Work?
You don’t need a huge agency doing your site optimization work for you to rank higher in search engine result pages. SEO works through tweaking and enhancing various elements of your website.
There are a lot of elements that users can optimize to make their site more visible to search engines. Search engines take a lot of factors into account to determine which site has the better content to rank. The best start to SEO is the identification and use of keywords. Keywords define what your content is about.
The screenshot above is an example of SEO. Featured snippets are a new way of searching results that showcases your content in a much more readable format without clicking it. It’s a great way for generating leads and traffic to your site. It’s not an easy process to rank No. 1 in any content on Search Engines. Users are highly likely to click on the first result they see. Probably a few other results. There’s no going to page 2 on search results.
Types of SEO
- Technical SEO: This focuses on optimizing the technical elements of a website, such as its structure, coding, and server settings, on making it more search engine-friendly.
- On-page SEO: This involves optimizing the content and elements on a website’s pages, such as the page titles, meta descriptions, headings, and internal links
- Off-page SEO: This involves building high-quality backlinks to a website from other authoritative websites, as well as social media marketing and other forms of online promotion.
Moreover, SEO is a huge time investment. Website owners might not see their rankings improve over a long span of time. It’s highly unlikely to see instant success with SEO. You will continuously need to update and optimize your site as time moves on. Regular optimizations will be necessary if you want to keep on ranking higher.
The algorithm behind SEO? We have no idea. Search Engines have changed their algorithm over the years to make sure no one can take advantage of them. This makes it so that you’ll always have to keep a close eye on how you strategize your website optimization.
What is PPC?
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is a digital advertising model that puts your content at the top of search engine result pages for the specific keyword you bid for. Basically, advertisers pay search engines for every click they get on the ad. It’s a form of targeted advertising that caters to a specific audience.
Learn More on the Basics of PPC Advertising
Benefits of the PPC Model
- PPC offers quick results; instant visibility and traffic as your content is ranked higher above organic rankings.
- Control over ad spend and budget
- High flexibility and customization of ad campaigns.
Types of PPC Advertising
- Search Engine Ads
SE ads are the most common type of PPC ads that appear at the top of SERPs. Advertisers can bid on certain keywords so that their businesses are shown at the top of the result pages if users search for those keywords. They’re mostly text-based clickable links.
- Display Ads
Display ads use visual elements like images or videos to make more engaging and interactive advertisements for the users. They’re more expensive than text-based ads and can be more specific. They can be in the form of pop-ups in apps or websites and are shown algorithmically.
- Shopping Ads
Ever search for something on Google and have been displayed pictorial results to buy products? These ads appear at the top of the search engine results pages when users search for specific products.
- App Installs/Social Ads
Ads on social media or mobile applications generally have ads that encourage you to download certain apps or games. These ads can also end up in your SERPs but generally are limited to apps.
Users can easily identify an AD from organic results as a PPC ad has a sponsored tag above their title.
Although your ADs are at the top and you get a ton of traffic, the disadvantages of PPC will show soon enough.
First and Foremost, PPC is an advertisement campaign that costs. Trying to keep your ads up for an extended amount of time will really start to put a dent in your wallet. That budget could be well utilized somewhere else.
Secondly, traffic and conversions are different things. If you want conversions, just money and advertising wont cut it. Even if you get a successful conversion, your Customer Aqquisition Costs (CAC) will be much higher.
Differences Between SEO and PPC
Now that we know the what SEO and PPC mean, we can finally list what are the differences, SEO vs PPC.
- Cost SEO is a free-to-use/more cost-effective approach to building and growing your website. There are paid tools and services you can use to help you optimize your site better, but it remains free to use. As for PPC, it’s an advertisement model to help reach more people. It involves paying for each click which adds up very quickly.
- Time To See Results SEO is a time and effort investment. Rising up through the search engine rankings needs time to build trust, authority, and relevance. This is why PPC is a faster way of gaining that traffic you might need to get things started. PPC provides instant visibility and traffic to your website
- Long Term Success We’ve discussed SEO takes time. To rank at the top of any keyword is a difficult and long process but it eventually pays off. SEO is the process of building relevance, reputation and trust. While PPC is good for a short term boost, SEO is a surefire way to get a long term success.
- Targeting SEO targets specific keywords and topics of difference niches to rank higher in the search results while PPC targets keywords and audiences through advertising.
- Cost Per Customer Acquisition and Traffic SEO is a free method to organically get more traffic into your websites. If you have a successful conversion through SEO, then the cost per customer gain is lower than compared to PPC, where you have to pay for each traffic into your website.
Which One Is Better?
In this debate over SEO vs PPC, the true answer is not clear cut. It’s not a matter of which one is better as they have their own unique advantages and disadvantages. It’s best to utilize both for maximum gains, but will ultimately depend on your business goals, budget and target audience.
Use SEO to build your brand. SEO isn’t just for people with no budget to spend on ads but people looking for long term. SEO helps build brand authority and reputation. It’s a choice if you want long-term ROI.
But PPC isn’t bad either. PPC is for people who want quicker results; be it their wish or necessity. PPC Ads helps you reach your product/services out to customers faster. Use advertising if you want to direct your audience to a sales or landing page. These Ads roll out faster in people’s search results so if you want to make a time sensitive offer, go for it.
You can use both hand in hand too. If you’re starting a business, use PPC ads to help boost your product to people’s result pages. Generating awareness that way can be beneficial in the long run too. The high cost keywords you bid for through PPC model can be moved to organic search through SEO.
PPC can also be a good way to test keyword strategies before committing to long-term SEO strategies. If you can rank well through organic search and strong paid visibility, it’s a win-win.
We only provided insights for these topics. The ultimate decision is in your hands. But hopefully, you learnt something more in this blog, SEO vs PPC.